CONSTRUCT OF ANOCTURNAL CITYTo roam the streets after dark isnot to be alone. It is a provocation,abetted by architectureWORDS: Nick Dunn

Architecture may be the original situated technology, supporting social relations and connections. It is also time-bound and has a relationship to space, whether sensitive to its context, indifferent
or defiant. Gleaning place from space is no mean feat.

But this is what architecture does all the time forgood or ill to our sense of our surroundings. Atnight, though, architecture’s power transforms thesense of location and orientation in a very differentmanner. Hitherto barely detectable features take onan altogether different quality in the dark. Urbancrevices, interstitial spaces and the city’s margins loomforth in their confidence.

The footnotes in these places are rich palimpsests,
disclosing temporary inhabitation, sharp tangs of
detritus and passage, dank and dripping, sunk and
slippery against the more rational and acceptable
materiality of the city. These charged voids of the ▼